For San Bernardino, when it rains it pours – at least when it comes to the budget. The city declared bankruptcy in 2012 after its budget ran into the red by $46 million. In federal bankruptcy court, the city continues to fight paying $17 million in back payments and penalties to the California Public Employee Retirement System.

Now the city faces the possible closure of three branch libraries and two fire stations to balance a $124 million budget and “shore up a $22.8 million deficit,” the San Bernardino Sun reported. At a May 21 budget workshop, City Manager Alan Parker called for library cuts of $1 million from a $1.7 million budget.

The library cuts would leave open only the Norman F. Feldheym Central Library on Sixth Street. But Library board President Milton Clark told the workshop the closures would save only $200,000. Laying off 10 of 13 employees would bring savings up to $850,000. That still would be short of the $1 million the library needs to save.

Even worse could be $6.5 million in cuts to the Fire Department, including closing two fire stations.

This is what happens when cities don’t properly manage their budgets. But San Bernardino shares the blame with CalPERS, which in 1999 sponsored Senate Bill 400, by then-state Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, now the chairman of the California Democratic Party. For cities, the bill allowed boosts in police and fire employee retirement pay formulas from 2.5 percent of the final year’s pay at age 55, to 3 percent at age 50.

At the time, CalPERS guaranteed there would be no problems funding the pension spiking. Yet as the Calpensions news site reported last year, the agenda for the CalPERS benefits committee meeting in June 1999 “shows the board was informed of the risk” to the fund during a long recession. Of course, that’s exactly what happened with the 2007-08 Great Recession.

State Controller John Chiang’s website, Government Compensation in California, lists the total compensation numbers (salary, plus health and retirement costs) for some of the top San Bernardino city positions: Police captain: $331,619 total compensation ($309,458 wages); chief of police: $321,146 ($240,877); fire battalion chief: $296,115 ($233,413); fire captain: $283,575 ($235,846).

By comparison, in 2012 Gov. Jerry Brown’s total compensation was $164,084 ($155,100 total wages). And in 2012 the median household income for the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario demographic area, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, was just $51,695.

What can be done? Commendably, as Reuters reported, on Feb. 4 San Bernardinans “voted to complete a rout of the city's pro-union old guard, electing business-friendly pragmatists who have pledged to try to reduce pension costs and take on vested interests.”

But renegotiating union contracts is difficult. “It’s so hard because state labor laws prevent you from running the government like a business by cutting salaries and benefits to survive,” said Marcia Fritz,president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, a pension-reform group. We hope that the public-employee unions see the gravity of the crisis and give a little on compensation.

Seniority rules in union contracts mandate cuttingthose who are those “most qualified and newly hired, and their salaries and benefits are low because they’re young,” Fritz said. That leaves people “with the highest salaries, the closest to retirement with the most expensive pensions,” she said.

A state reform initiative sponsored by Democratic Mayor Chuck Reed of San Jose didn’t make it to the ballot this year, but might be back for 2016.

One thing we don’t want is tax increases in any area. Doing so would only hurt residents who have suffered enough, while discouraging jobs and business creation. The city is going to have to muddle through another crisis.

The budget crisis will be discussed at a workshop at 5 tonight in the EDA Board Room, at 201 N. "E" St.

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